The present invention concerns a stackable unit comprising at least one trough intended to contain a food product such as ham during its cooking.
For carrying out the industrial cooking of ham, cooking it in a cooking chamber of relatively large volume is known. The hams are wrapped respectively in cooking bags which it is suitable to dispose in troughs of a stackable unit.
When this first stackable unit is full, it serves as a support for other stackable units which it is suitable to then fill and then successively stack one upon another to form a stack which is then transferred into a cooking chamber.
Each stackable unit comprises a frame whereof the sides consist of two transverse sections disposed opposite each other and two longitudinal sections disposed opposite each other. The transverse sections and the longitudinal sections are joined by their ends so as to form the frame.
Each trough open towards the top is mounted inside the frame so that its longitudinal axis is parallel to the longitudinal sections. Each trough extends between the two transverse sections and each end of each trough is fixed to one of the transverse sections.
Under each trough there is fixed a cover open towards the bottom which is mounted inside the frame so that its longitudinal axis is parallel to the longitudinal sections. Each cover extends between the two transverse sections. Each cover is fixed to the trough that hangs over it by means of connecting plates.
Thus, when two stackable units are superposed, each cover of the upper stackable unit comes to close a trough of the lower stackable unit so as to form a mould within which the ham to be cooked is disposed.
In order to obtain hams of constant cross-section all along the longitudinal axis, it is necessary to guarantee that each mould thus formed retains a constant cross-section all along the longitudinal axis, that is to say that the distance between the bottom of a trough and its cover remains constant.
When the troughs are small in length, the rigidity of the frame provides this constancy.
But more and more, the length of the troughs is increasing. The frame no longer provides the rigidity necessary for keeping this distance constant all along the troughs. In particular, the longitudinal sections could buckle under the weight of the hams. Moreover, in the case of a stackable unit of the prior art, each longitudinal section generally consists of a folded plate, and the contact between two superposed folded plates does not make it possible to guarantee a constant cross-section of the ham over its entire length.
One object of the present invention is to propose a stackable unit which does not have the drawbacks of the prior art and which in particular makes it possible to keep a constant cross-section between the trough of a lower stackable unit and the cover of the stackable unit just above.